Fred Couples experiences better Saturday

This year, Fred Couples didn’t sustain a Saturday tumble.

Couples did lose a stroke and dropped to 1-under for the Masters, but he is only four back of the lead after shooting 1-over 73. In the past two years, Couples sank with 77 and 75 in the third round.

“My average went down,” the 1992 Masters champ said. “I’m not smart enough to know what 75, 77 and 73 is, but it wasn’t bad.”

Couples was one of a record six players 50 or older to make the cut. Only one surged: Miguel Angel Jimenez, 50, who had 66.

“Well, if you are 50 that doesn’t mean that you cannot play well,” said Jimenez, who will make his Champions Tour debut next week. “I’m still moving. I’m still flexible.”

Jimenez tied the record for best Masters Tournament round by a senior. Ben Hogan did it at 54 in 1967, and Couples matched the feat in 2010, when he was 50.

Couples didn’t come close to repeating his own feat Saturday, but he remained in the hunt.

Going back to 2010, eight of Cou­ples’ 10 Thursday and Friday rounds have been better than par. But on Satur­days, he has slumped. In 2013, a round of 77 dropped him from one shot back of the lead to seven behind. In 2012, he shot 75 and fell from co-leader to seven shots back.

He didn’t struggle as mightily this time, but Cou­ples is going to need a big Sunday to make a run.

“I’m playing pretty good golf, and I have a shot (Sun­day) of shooting some silly round to maybe win, but it’s going to take a 65 or 66,” he said. “But you never know.”

As for the other four over-50 players to make the cut, Bernhard Langer and Vijay Singh were closest to reaching par. Langer, 56, had a 1-over round to come in at 3-over, while Singh, 51, shot 2-over to be 4-over in the tournament.

Langer was joined by Lar­ry Mize and Sandy Lyle as the three pre-1990s Masters champions to tee up on Saturday.

Lyle, 56, made the cut for the second year in a row after missing the previous three. The 1988 Masters champion, shot 76 on Saturday to drop to 8-over.

Sunday will mark his 100th round at Augusta.

“I think to anybody’s criteria at the end of a golfing career to have over 100 rounds of golf at the Masters, there’s got to be something you can tell your grandchildren in time to come,” Lyle said. “There’s probably still a few more rounds to go yet.”